This is Izzo’s 30th year coaching, I actually expected him to retire when Steven graduated last year, but apparently he thinks he has a chance at a good team this year and he returned despite the fact hat he turns 70 in January.

This team has one five star and a whopping 9 four star players, so if they all make big jumps this year we could be a very good team.

Unfortunately we lost 4 of our five starters from last years team and replaced them with an unranked transfer center ( they only rank the top 125 ), a 4 star transfer from Omaha, two four star guard recruits, and a 3 star power forward who is expected to red shirt and put on weight.

Gone with the 4 starters are over half of the minutes played, points, rebounds, assists, steals, and free throws.

We struggled rebounding last year and the returning front court players ( Booker, Cooper, Kohler and Carr ) combined averaged less than 10 rebounds per game and Zapala our senior transfer center averaged less than 1 rebound per game in all his years at Utah State despite being 7 feet tall. Combined those four returning players only average 12 points per game, and Zapala averaged less than 1 point per game at Utah State. Obviously we need a huge improvement from all of them this year or it will be a long year.

For some reason our player development has fallen off and despite all the 4 star players we haven’t produced a first round draft pick sine 2018, and only had one second round draft pick the last four years combined. We finally brought in a new experienced assistant that didn’t have an Izzo link so maybe things will improve.

This year ten different B10 teams had players selected to the first or second all B10 teams, but none were Spartans.

The various prognosticators have us predicted to finish the B10 somewhere between 7th and 11th.

Two B10 teams had two top 10 recruiting classes Rutgers and Illinois ( Indiana was the only other top 20 class at 14th), but the B10 is not expected to be very good this year.

AP top 25 preseason poll for Basketball

Purdue 14th ( finished last year as the #2 ranked team with 34 wins )

Indiana 17th ( got the #2 overall transfer in center Oumar Ballo who averaged a double double for Arizona last year )

UCLA 22nd ( added 6 four stars this year )

Rutgers 25th ( somehow landed 2 of the top 3 recruits in the nation )

Illinois 26th ( finished last year as the #6 ranked team last year, and added 5 four stars this year )

TEAM

STARTERS

Point guard - Fears - appears to be recovered from the gunshot wound that took him out last year. He should eventually develop into our next great point guard.

Shooting guard - Akins - very talented but widely inconstant. He needs to be a go to scorer this year but that will be a big leap for him as he normally has multiple games where he completely disappears.

Small forward - Fidler - transfer form Omaha where he was their go to player. Even Walker struggled his first year adjusting to the defensive intensity of the B10 before taking over in years 2 and 3. Fidler doesn't have years 2 and 3 and we need him to be a volume scorer this year. We need him to learn how to play tough defense so Izzo lets him stay on the court.

Power forward - Booker - He was a 5 star recruit but only averaged just 3.7 points and 1.7 rebounds per game last year. He has speed and hops, but does not like contact and likes to hoist up three pointers rather than battle down low.

Center - My guess is Kohler - He has been snake bitten by injuries his whole career but seems to have and actual post game and a face up jumper. However he only actually averaged 2 points and 2 rebounds per game last year but hopefully this will be his year.

BENCH

Point - Holloman - our best returning 3 point shooter (42.5%), a good defender and has a good assist to turnover ratio. His only issue is he is not aggressive at all, and defers to others on a regular basis which is why I predict he will come off the bench even though I like him at shooting guard more than I do Akins.

Shooting guard - Richardson a 4 star combo guard and Teng a 4 star shooting guard. Both have looked good in the preseason but both are true freshmen. Holloman could also get time here.

Small forward - Carr - He is the best athlete in the B10 and would win a B10 dunk contest. He just need to develop a jump shot because last year everyone played 6 feet off him and dared him to shoot to make sure he couldn’t drive past them to the hole and dunk. He also struggled with his help defense responsibilities and would rather have a highlight block than just play solid positional defense. Normand is also available here. However he red shirted last year because he was not ready for the B10, and then he got injured and missed the preseason this year.

Power forward - Kohler and Carr would be the best options here as the only other power forward is true freshmen McCulloch who is a bit small for the B10 presently, and was not a top 100 recruit. A lot of people have Kohler here and not staring at center.

Center - Cooper - a big athletic guy who was a soccer goalie but then grew to 6’ 10". He hustles, plays hard and is a decent rebounder and defender but no one guards him at all unless he is trying to dunk. Zapala is also here but it is hard to see someone that averaged less than a point and less than a rebound a game at Utah State making noise in the B10.

SEASON

Last year we looked okay in transition and early offense but once we go to the half court we were horrible. Most possessions ended up with Hoggard trying to bully his way through three guys to the hole, or Hall or Walker going one on one to try and get off a shot. The main issue was that our scorers were playing 3 on 5 most of the time as no one guarded Mady, Cooper or Carr when they were on the floor, and just sagged off and clogged the lane to make sure no one could drive to the basket. This is the reason I would start Kohler at center since he has the potential to need to be guarded where Cooper and Zapala do not and we can’t afford to play guys that other defenses can ignore and take away drives. Carr, Richardson, Akins, Fidler and Fears are all good at driving if they only have one defender to face.

This season is really counting on Booker, Carr, Akins and Kohler all taking huge leaps from last year's performance, and Fidler having a seamless transition up to B10 level.

It is also counting on none of them getting hurt, especially Booker and Kohler as we are extremely thin up front in scoring options.

I was really hoping we would go out and grab a top center in the transfer portal like Indiana did, and UM grabbed two of the top 8, while we once again stood pat and basically traded Zapala for Mady which I am not sure made us better as Mady at least was great at defense, blocks, rebounding and setting picks.

We don’t have any go to guy like Walker or Hall who can just take over and get their own shot. That will be a problem if we have non scorers playing, but otherwise we seem to do better when we have to run our offense as team and don’t have guys trying to score all by themselves. Fears and Holloman are both really good point guards and will set guys up, they just need them to score when they do. Izzo needs to play the hot hand and not give starter minutes to starters who are having an off night as we have 4 stars backing up every position aside from Center. We also need to hope teams are willing to try and run with us as I think it will go poorly for them as most of our players are fast and we should have a deep bench to spread minutes over.

This team could finish anywhere from snapping the tournament steak to a surprise NCAA run depending on how the key guys develop.

In true Izzo fashion we play #1 Kansas early, and then could meet #3 UConn and #9 UNC in the Maui invitational. So we should know after those games how the B10 is likely to go. The big 10 is ripe for an upstart team to make a run, and hopefully we can be that team instead of going through another year of just sqeaking into the tournament.